The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
When operating in an infrastructure mode, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) typically include an access point (AP) and one or more client stations. WLANs have evolved rapidly over the past decade. Development of WLAN standards such as IEEE §§802.11a/b/g/n has focused primarily on improving single-user peak data throughput. For example, IEEE §802.11b operates at a single-user peak throughput of 11 Mbps, IEEE §802.11a/g operates at a single-user peak throughput of 54 Mbps, and IEEE §802.11n operates at a single-user peak throughput of 600 Mbps.
In these WLANs, the AP transmits information to one client station at a time in a unicast mode. Alternatively, the same information may be transmitted to a group of client stations concurrently in a multicast mode. This approach reduces network efficiency because other client stations need to wait until the current client station or group of client stations is serviced. When transmitting the same information to the group of client stations, throughput may be limited by one of the client stations with the weakest reception.